


Construction Paper Hearts

by Rhidee



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Body Appreciation, Body Modification, Communication, Except for a bit where there's, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Happy Ending, I have no clue how else to tag it, It's borderline a bunch of Drabbles, Kisses, Love, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Teenage Crowley (Good Omens), Trust, but not really, implied/referenced PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22703479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhidee/pseuds/Rhidee
Summary: There was something so- Aziraphale trusted him, yeah? The serpent of Eden.  Trusted him enough to lie here, utterly unconscious, in his arms.  Trusted him to sit with his hand on the place that held his goddamn guts for hours.  It was an honor, when it wasn't bloody terrifying.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41





	Construction Paper Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PanDisasterMan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanDisasterMan/gifts).



> Happy Valentines everyone! I'm trying to make my boyfriend so gay zey cry today, so come on in! Look around at the softness.
> 
> And yo, if you're alone today? Maybe sulking? Listen, on god, i swear that 1) you are deserving of love 2) friend love is just as important and 3) if you keep looking, lives are like, suuuper long. You'll find someone, or find something better.
> 
> Anyway trans rights! Enjoy reading and drop a comment if you think of a single word to say.

When one was a non human being with the very lucky ability to miracle away all messes, bathes were rather a communal action, or one taken purely for the feeling of it. However, as busy as they both were, there was hardly a lot of sitting in tubs and doing absolutely nothing. Inefficient, it was, when you could simply miracle away whatever aches you had, whatever dirt you’d picked up, and spend your time seeing some wonders of the world or taking credit for Pinterest.

(Both Aziraphale and Crowley had done so, though for rather different reasons.)

However, there’s a bit of difference between not doing something because you don’t want to, and not doing something because you can’t. If there’s no fence to jump, what’s the point of even going over into some woods? Bunch of dirt, but as soon as there’s some human notions of land ownership, suddenly it’s a blast and a half to disturb some insects and get stains on your trousers.

And, well, baths. Aziraphale didn’t like them, as such, not in any particular way. But to have baths associated forever with such a stressful time, to have to step in with the niggling fear that Crowley’s corporation might burn around him, might just leave him exposed to the demons of hell, might just blow his dearest’s cover and leave them both _screwed._ Well. That just wouldn’t do.

Fitting Aziraphale and Crowley into one bathtub was rather easy, since the bathtub knew better than to interrupt their giggly, love drunk kisses with such trivial things as the constraints of space and the consistency of matter. Their hands took off each other’s clothes, with the occasional huff as an overly complicated garment needed more focus than two kissing beings could fathom.

Aziraphale held Crowley by his hair, cherishing, like examining a fine piece of pottery before purchasing. If, granted, you were making out furiously with the pottery, and had already found it had jumped into your cart ages ago.

Crowley pet along Aziraphale’s back, traced the softness of his sides. Their noses bumped together and their breaths intermingled, tiny molecules pulled rhythmically from one set of lungs to the next. They stumbled, one clunky, love filled being, into the tub, where the water rose around then and added a warmth to their bodies which was already in their hearts.

There was no, to put it frankly, horny tension. Their cocks sat hard and untouched, and they had no desire to either. They simple felt, and were felt, and explored the soft flesh each other had made their own. Crowley scratched nondistinct patterns on to Aziraphale’s tum, Aziraphale placed cherishing kisses onto Crowley’s neck, and under the water their legs touched in a sort of grounding closeness. The security of knowing you are exactly as untethered as another, that if you drift off your course someone will help you back to it.

That, and the bath was slippery.

Their kisses faded for soft words of adoration, gentle looks and compliments drifting about. They took turns washing each other’s backs, massaging out the tenseness. Aziraphale thought of fear maybe once, twice. But it didn’t last, chased away like the soap bubbles as he gently washed Crowley’s hair. Where was there room for that? That fear? The love of his everything was in his arms, shining clean and smiling at him, touching his body freely and complimenting a million things one never thinks about. The shape of his eyes, the feel of his arms, the width of his hands. 

And Aziraphale responds in kind, as they both keep afloat from their own flustered states by attempting to fluster the other beyond repair. Aziraphale laughs with delight, called Crowley’s leg hair an underwater forest, and the moment dissolves into splashing and squealing and crows of victory.

They’re safe, they’re loved, and the floor is sopping wet.

It’s perfect.

-

When Aziraphale lied down, which wasn’t very often, he _lounged_.

He was sprawled on the sheets like a ruler, like a decadent king, like a bloody temptress, which was so many kinds of unfair Crowley could burn with it.

Crowley tracked down his angel’s soft stomach, along the seam lines on his thighs, back up on those delightful hands of his.

And then, bastard he was, Aziraphale _stretched_. 

His shirt lifted up, revealing his belly button, which the reader ought to remember should not be possible without a misused miracle. His arms pressed soft onto the bed, as he _arched_ , hips lifting up for absolutely no good reason.

Then he lifted his leg, stretched it out with an absolutely sinful sound of satisfaction, and crossed his legs.

Crowley determinedly didn’t watch the way his angel’s butt pushed against his trousers. He _didn’t_.

Behind the pages of a book he had read before, Aziraphale smiled. Like the bastard he is.

-

Crowley loved greeting his angel. Loved kissing him hello, seeing his eyes stretch around a smile, loved the gift of having him near.

He'd walk his long legs in and out of a room, mere moments apart, to go to Aziraphale and get that kiss hello. Would pop out for something, three times an hour, and then have suspiciously empty hands that then tugged on Aziraphale's shirt to pull him near.

As Crowley stumbled in again, managing to get a book this time (honestly, as if he was going to start reading the boxcar children now of all times), Aziraphale smiled.

"You know, dear, you can simply come get a kiss. There's no need for all of that hubbub."

Crowley blinked, already in the middle of leaning to meet the angel’s lips.

"Right." He said, then "Hm."

"I knew that."

Aziraphale smiled, pulled his demon down.

"Of course, love."

-

The problem with being awkwardly mistaken as a teenager by a blind old lady when really you were a demon from hell with social anxiety, is sometimes your social anxiety makes you panic and miracle your corporation into a teenaged body.

Yeah, you know how some people make you feel like a teenager again? Literally that. Imagine if you never were one and then suddenly, poof, you were.

Crowley started crying.

"Oh now, dear, none of that." Said the blind old lady, to the sound of a sniff, with all the mindless acceptance of a plot device. She pulled out a small travel sized Kleenex, held it out, and Crowley took it hopelessly.

~

Lilibeth was a spunky old thing, if a bit naive, and her massive Dobermans gave Crowley the sniff test as she pulled him along into her house.

Freezeframe. 'You may be wondering how I got into this situation', said the voice over narrative of teenage Crowley.

'You see, it all started when'-and then a large airplane flies over the recording studio. You'd really think they'd edit that out. This film is such a California YouTube dream movie. Its the type of energy that makes The Gay and Wonderous Life of Caleb Gallo, and similar things. Wow, this is a long airplane.

'-leaving me, a demon of hell, incomprehensibly older than this woman and her Manny (Pacman) Pacquiao Funko Pop, stuck washing dishes.'

And look, he is! Crowley is scrubbing down on those dishes with the nervousness of someone who has been adopted ten minutes ago, due to a misunderstanding and some flowers.

Lilibeth walked around and tidied up, one of her Doberman following along while the other watched Crowley with hesitant eyes. 

"Thank you for helping, dear, it can be so hard to see when there's a mess on the dishes, and i hate to embarrass myself in front of company!" Lilibeth laughed, like someone who knew damn well that dirtiness on dishes had a texture you could pick up with a sponge, if nothing else.

Crowley, who had lived much too long to believe this lady was in any way helpless, had the word ‘dear’ float around his face and echo into his mind, and scrubbed the dishes with embarrassed focus.

Somewhere, a faucet begun to leak, a tree branch began to grow over a drainpipe, and a handful of garden plants looked at each other with confused tension before deciding to grow a little bigger, just in case. Demonic energy, flavored in Crowley’s specific brand, sopping all over the place like a wet sponge.

Crowley helped Lilibeth with the dishes, and then cleaned the windows, and then helped arrange the sofa, and generally bustled about. They spoke, as people tend to do, but since this is a montage set to a free use song, we can’t hear them.

Then, of course, Aziraphale knocked on the door. The Dobermans turned their heads towards it quickly, almost as if some rude being had appeared directly on the doorstep, and followed along as Crowley went to open it.

“Hello, have you seen- …oh.” Said Aziraphale.

“…Hello, Aziraphale.” Said Crowley. Then he blushed.

“Oh, is that your person?” Called out Lilibeth, standing up and making her way to the door.

She made a shooing gesture, and Crowley looked at the dogs, which looked at him, and then he promptly shooed himself out of her way.

“Thank you for letting me borrow him, he’s a lovely worker. Is he your son or something?” 

Aziraphale looked like a word that could only be defined by two other words. Like flummoxed. Or maybe bewildered.

“Ah- Not as such. Sorry, he and I ought to head off, we have- things! To do. All matter of, stuffs.”

Lilibeth nodded knowingly.

“Yes, of course, the things and the stuffs. Well, stand by a minute, I just have to go fetch something.”

She made her way back into the house, leaving Aziraphale and Crowley to make a variety of facial expressions at one another. 

“Why are you a child?” Aziraphale whispered, frantically.

“Shut _up_.” Crowley hissed.

They had just enough time for a series of hand gestures before Lilibeth came back, holding a store brand package of Tiramisu. High end, not that an angel and a demon would have the at sight ability to determine the price of goods.

“You dears can have this, I don’t know why my nephews keep getting me the stuff. I think they’re trying to condition me to have their tastes, but the day I stop bringing champorado to family gatherings is the day I die.”

Aziraphale took it with the automatic nature of someone who just had something held in front of them, and then looked rather like he’d like to give it back.

“Thank you, Lilibeth.” Crowley chimed in, grabbing Aziraphale by the arm and walking them away as smoothly as possible.

“It was lovely meeting you! Bye now!” Aziraphale said, and they both disappeared as fast as possible.

~

“A teenager! I didn’t even know we could do that.” Aziraphale said, fluttering around and examining Crowley from all angles.

“Believe me, Angel, I didn’t either.”

It took a bit, but Crowley managed to miracle himself out of awkward teenage limbs and into his normal awkward adult limbs.

(“Are you wearing _Nikes_?” “Angel, please, can we pretend this part never happened?”)

They ate the tiramisu, or rather, Aziraphale ate the tiramisu and Crowley kissed him.

(It tasted delicious.)

-

The problem with staying in a body for a long time is you get overly familiar with how it looks. The same goes for staying _with_ a body.

That’s why when Aziraphale came into Crowley’s flat to find the demon himself without pants and snug in a damnably tartan sweater, his brain did a 404.

“Guh.” Said Aziraphale.

“Oh, shit.” Said Crowley, before miracling himself back into leather.

(They discussed it and worked to make Crowley more comfortable with the vulnerability and ownership of such fashion choices.)

((It still killed Aziraphale dead every single time.))

-

Their legs were tangled, their skin pressing warm and soothing against each other's. Crowley's hand rested on Aziraphale's stomach, his other arm tucked up under the pillow in the genius way to spoon. Aziraphale dozed softly, his mouth open and with an undignified snore, his hair missed against the pillow.

Crowley soft rubbed along his angel's stomach, tracing patterns as he waited for his love to wake. It was mushy, he sort of hated it, but well... No one was here to see.

"I've gone soft." He said to himself, quietly.

Aziraphale, hearing the words, moved closer in his sleep.

Crowley went softer, full of love.

There was something so- Aziraphale trusted him, yeah? The serpent of Eden. Trusted him enough to lie here, utterly unconscious, in his arms. Trusted him to sit with his hand on the place that held his goddamn guts for hours. It was an honor, when it wasn't bloody terrifying.

Really, what the hell? Guarding someone's back, by literally having them guard your entire front. And logistically- not easy to wiggle on out of! It's like saying 'yes, I'm willing to tie our fates, should some angel or demon or even just a robber come on in'. It was the most human kind of stupidity there was! 

Crowley continued monologuing to distract himself from the soft rhythmic breathing from Aziraphale, the way he could feel that on his chest. From the fact the angel literally had his spine exposed to him, which is so-breakable. To distract from the way PTSD from being old as balls made him helplessly tuned into weakness.

To ignore that Aziraphale knew all this too, and still let him hold him close, pet along his helplessly messy hair, place a kiss to the back of his neck, and just hold him.

Love. What the hell is it? Bloody terrifying, at least. 

Crowley smiled, softly and full of joy, into Aziraphale's hair.

-

Aziraphale loved watching Crowley just, exist. What could be more simple or complex than that? Crowley did the same, taking Aziraphale to this restaurant or that, to events that would please him.

But Aziraphale? He wasn’t the sort who loved for the events. He loved for the feeling of their hands together, for the way their footsteps sounded side by side. He loved for the way Crowley’s hair moved in the breeze, the way his expressions vary, the huff of his laugh and all it’s tones.

He loves every detail too small for a passerby to notice, every gift he knows nobody else has been given.

He loves Crowley, in pieces of a whole, while Crowley loves him, as a whole made of pieces.

And both loves are as fierce and pure as anything.

-

One day, they’d find a million pieces of their love had grown upon their furniture like mold or dust, if one could cherish that. Look, angel, we can’t give this away, this is the tickets from the first roller coaster we rode. Listen, Crowley, we can’t toss that, that’s the bookmark I was using the first time you kissed me. Listen, look, see what you mean to me, see these pieces of who I am that now are forever part of who we are.

They’d find a million coffee mugs, which seem to breed in the cabinet despite how little they’re used. They’d find pieces of their love, pieces of Warlock’s love, pieces of Adams love. Love in bits and bobs from neighbors, from friends, from people who took shelter during the rain. Look, listen, see what these pieces mean, the memories they give me when I look at them, the seeds of the love that blooms today, the pieces of who we are now.

Paper that refuses to fade, dried flowers, a penny found on the sidewalk.

Look, listen, I love you, you love me, we love the world and the world loves us back.

A pencil, a pacifier, an old earring.

Terrible hoarders, the lot of them. Embarrassing, as their young family ages to older family. Frightening, as their family ages older still. And fondly, as God gives them the gift of forever in ways this story cannot tell.

…well,

They make a pocket dimension, a whole little world of cozy pillows, a museum of love. A heaven. Some place for them and all they love.

Freedom is God’s greatest gift. Love is the biggest bloom on that tree.

The bookshop leaves London, they love and move and age not at all, and all they love goes safe and tidy within. They fear, they fight, they feel, but none of it takes from the love. Look, listen, can’t you see?

Thank you for the memories.


End file.
